I have noticed a change happening and it doesn’t have anything to do about the weather.
The change I am speaking about is at the village office. The village has apparently decided that shopping local makes sense.
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen three vacant positions at the village – three high-profile positions – filled with people from the region.
Our new chief administrative officer (CAO), Sheryl Worthing, took over the reins as of March 1, but I am sure she had, to all intents and purposes, stepped into that position weeks before. In the short time she has been CAO, I have noticed a difference.
The great thing about Worthing filling this position is she is a local girl. She knows the local wants and needs, and I feel she really takes that into consideration in decisions.
Then, right after they hired one local in Worthing, they hired another one, Jeff Ragsdale, to fill the position of sustainability coordinator. Ragsdale also has deep connections to our community, growing up here and has family here.
Now the village has gone three-for-three with local hirings. The recreational director position has been filled by Logan Wilson.
Wilson was born and raised here and I can only hope that he will be a great benefit to our community too. Being from the area you are more in tune with what people want and who they are. That’s the important thing.
Hiring local people is only an added bonus for our community. When you hire local people, chances are they are not leaving – they live here, their family lives here, their kids go to school here. So it is a good choice all the way around.
It can sometimes be easy to fall into the, “They’re from a bigger place, so they must be better” way of thinking. That works sometimes, but it’s not an assumption anyone, whether at the village office or a local business, should ever take as a rule that has to be followed.
Outsiders come and go and yes, sometimes of course you have to hire outside the community, but if you ask me these three positions have been filled with the right people.
Another bonus to hiring locals to fill these top positions is a simple one. These are people who have worked their way up through the ranks in their hometown, and now have had their efforts rewarded.
How often do you hear someone around town lamenting that his best people always leave for the “big city”, be it Prince George or Vancouver.
If you show them they can get ahead by staying in Burns Lake and can be, if you want to phrase it this way, a big fish in a small pond, they’ll stick around, which is an obvious benefit to the community.
Local hiring may be one tool municipalities can use to increase community involvement. All the new hirees have family here and lots of friends, so right away there is a link to the community.
And that’s something you can’t buy with a high salary for an outsider. It has to be earned.
These three have earned it.